In the pharmaceutical sector, it is known to make an intermittent rotating machine of the type comprising a conveying wheel, which is mounted to intermittently rotate about a longitudinal, substantially vertical axis thereof, and is provided with at least one group of pockets comprising, in turn, a plurality of pockets distributed according to at least one row and adapted to each receive and keep a relative capsule.
The capsules are fed into the relative pockets in at least one feeding station comprising a containment hopper of the capsules, an extractor device for extracting the capsules from the hopper, and an orienting device adapted to receive the capsules from the extractor device and transfer the capsules themselves into relative pockets with relative caps arranged over the respective bottoms.
Generally, the extractor device comprises a plurality of substantially vertical extraction channels equal in number to the number of pockets of a row of pockets; and the orienting device comprising a plurality, of mutually parallel orienting channels which extend transversally to the extraction channels and each having a respective inlet portion which is vertically aligned to a respective extraction channel and is vertically delimited by a substantially horizontal bottom wall and by a respective vertically open outlet portion.
The orienting device further comprises, for each orienting channel, a respective first mobile orienting element horizontally mobile along the orienting channel itself for transferring the relative capsule from the inlet portion to the outlet portion, and a respective second orienting element vertically mobile along the outlet portion for transferring the capsule from the outlet portion into the relative pocket.
The known intermittent rotating machines of the type described above have some main drawbacks mainly deriving from the fact that, when the pockets of each group of pockets are distributed in two or more mutually parallel rows, the capsules are fed into the pockets of each row of pockets in a relative feeding station. In other words, the machine comprises a number of feeding stations equal to the number of rows of pockets of each group of pockets and is thus relatively complex, cumbersome and costly.